Coming For You
by cmr2014
Summary: Ah, the silly things Vash and Meryl do. It would be simpler just to figure it out and say it...but not nearly as much fun. It's inevitable; it's a fact that they're gonna get down to it.


DISCLAIMER: Trigun and its characters belong to Yasuhiro Nightow.

Lyrics to "Why Can't I?" by Liz Phair

 **Coming For You**

"– and I thought you were him trying to give her back!" Vash the Stampede concluded.

Nicholas D. Wolfwood guffawed at Vash's joke and took a long sip of his beer.

"Well, something sounds amusing."

Both men turned at the sound of Meryl Stryfe approaching them, followed by her partner Milly Thompson.

"Just a little guy humor," Wolfwood said non-specifically. "What's up, ladies?"

Meryl set her pack on the bar next to Vash, neither looking at him nor even saying a word. She took out a flyer and circled around him to Wolfwood. "Milly and I said we'd help pass these out. They're for the local rodeo this weekend. You have to sign up for events ahead of time and there is a fee, but food and drink is free to all participants within an hour of their event start time. All the details are on the flyer."

"Hope to see you there, Mr. Priest!" Milly added cheerily.

"Hey! Don't I get a flyer?" Vash wanted to know.

Meryl directed a glance at him that made his spine frost over, departing without her pack but with a "Humph!"

Vash shuddered after she left, trying to clear the chill. Turned back to his beer. "What the hell was _that_ all about?"

Wolfwood glanced at him. "You mean you don't know?" Shook his head sadly. "Spikey, spikey, spikey…"

"No, I don't know! Not once the whole time we've been here have I called her bitchy! I haven't teased her about being short, I haven't talked about what a pain in the ass she is, I haven't even tried to duck out on her. I've been nothing but nice to her!"

"That's just it, spikey. You quit playing the game."

Vash snorted. "What game?"

"Meryl's not like Milly, she doesn't like things easy. She'll never say it, but she likes chasing you all over; it keeps her engaged. And she likes being teased by you. You do it with a smile, so she knows – look, it's hard to explain, she knows it's a friendly teasing and she likes the attention. And are you seriously going to tell me you don't enjoy it when she chases you? You love the challenge as much as she does. So what you think is being nice, she takes as you quitting."

"But I'm not even playing!"

Wolfwood's snicker was obnoxious to Vash's ears. "I've seen how you look at her. You're playing the same game she is, you just don't know it."

"What, like I Spy or something?"

"Something. Don't ask me, man, the two of you are the ones playing it."

Vash propped his head in thought as the bartender turned on the radio for background music.

"Damn it, Luke," Wolfwood snarled. "I can't stand this song, change the station!"

"Sorry," the backward-capped bartender apologized in word only, "Lorelai spilled a drink on it the other day and now the dial's stuck. Can't change it until I fix it. And don't ask me to turn it off, either, it's the only way I survive your barstool philosophizing."

Vash let the two bicker, thoughts swirling and colliding. What _did_ he feel when he looked at Meryl? She'd been a part of his life long enough now that he just kind of took it for granted that she'd be there when he looked. He'd never stopped to think about what might be below the surface.

The song on the radio seeped into his brain as he closed his eyes and focused on her image, trying to disengage the protective armor that he habitually kept around his emotional self.

"What if this is just the beginning

We're already wet and we're gonna go swimming"

That was part of the problem with these songs that survived The Fall, they were Earth songs with Earth references. Who on Gunsmoke had any idea what swimming was like? Certainly not Vash. Rem had tried to explain it once, but the concept of being immersed in water just was something he couldn't grok, couldn't get it the way someone did who had experienced it.

Sort of like love.

He loved Rem. He loved the human race, all its good and bad alike, everyone stumbling around just trying to get to that unfathomable place called better.

But those songs always singing about love for one person…Vash always had the feeling he was looking for something like that, but how do you seek something without being entirely sure what it is?

"I'd love for you to make me wonder

Where it's going

I'd love for you to pull me under

Something's growing"

He pictured Meryl. How he'd felt just now when she'd ignored him. How he felt in their back-and-forth exchanges of teasing insults that weren't actually insults.

Was it at all possible she was what he was looking for and he didn't know it?

"Why can't I breathe whenever I think about you?

Why can't I speak whenever I talk about you?

It's inevitable

It's a fact that we're gonna get down to it"

His eyes snapped open. He grabbed her pack off the bar and left the barstool in one fluid motion, bolting out of the bar.

"The hell you off to?" Wolfwood called.

"To find out!"

Out in the street, Vash stopped. Which way had she gone? He thought back. He hadn't been paying conscious attention, but subconsciously he paid attention to everything. While perturbed at her cold shoulder, he still had seen her leave out of the corner of his eye.

That way!

Vash took off down the street, clutching the pack tight to keep from losing it or having it snatched; loving your fellow men didn't mean blinding yourself to what some of them would let poor impulse control make them do.

Like fight over a paid lady, for example, which was what was happening as he passed by the local establishment. Two guys tumbled out of the building swinging wildly, slamming into Vash. He stayed upright by going with the momentum, pivoting with one arm out for balance.

The two brawlers were not pleased by what they perceived as this interloper. "Stay out of it!" they snarled together, each swinging wide haymakers.

Vash simply crouched. The punches sailed harmlessly over him and solidly into the other thrower's head, the two men knocking each other out.

"Sleep tight, fellas," Vash told them, turning to resume his pursuit. Except his above-human hearing picked up a familiar sound. He threw himself flat to the ground just in time, the cocked pistol discharging its round where his torso had been an instant before.

"Thanks to you, I'm not going to get any money out of either one of those bozos!" a tart yelled, cocking her pistol for another shot.

Yikes! Vash scrambled to his feet, jumping just in the nick of time to have a shot hit the dirt that might have hit his foot. He angled his way over more next to building profiles as he ran, hoping to make for a harder target as he put distance between himself and the angry woman. Some days, it just wasn't good to wake up.

He scanned as he ran, but it was no use. Meryl had too much of a head start; she could be anywhere. It was time for a higher viewpoint.

Ah, this would do nicely – he moved down to the next building, getting in a loose starting position against its wall. He fastened Meryl's pack around his shoulders, securing it as best he could. Pushed off with a powerful step, his other leg planting into a jump that propelled him to a hitching post, bouncing off that and twisting his body around so he was able to grab onto the second-floor window edge and pull himself up and in.

Immediately covered his eyes as a woman shrieked. "Sorry, ma'am! Out in a jiff!"

Looking down to avert his eyes from whatever the woman was shrieking over, Vash climbed back out the window, trying his best to hug the flat wall as he crawled up until his feet were balanced on the edge with just enough perch for him to launch himself up high enough to grab the flat roof's ledge. Thank God for all those pull-ups he made himself do every day – it took almost every ounce of strength he'd developed to pull himself up by his fingertips enough to get a better grip, but he managed, and from there he was able to plant his feet for purchase and boost himself the rest of the way.

Oh, it would be so nice if he could lay there and catch his breath. But that wasn't why he'd gotten up here. So he pushed himself to a standing position and circled the roof, scanning for a short insurance girl in a white cape among the people going about their business.

Short? White cape? There she was! Several buildings away, though.

It was time for a little roof-jumping.

Vash backed up clear to the edge opposite the one he would be running at. Ready – go!

He was almost set to jump when – "Gotcha, you jerk!" Aw, not that same tart who was upset over the two "customers" he'd let take care of each other!

Vash's timing was thrown off, forced to jump early to avoid a ground-based gunshot. He missed the roof he was aiming for, fingers missing the ledge by what seemed like mere inches. But he was in luck – a clothesline was strung up between buildings. He snagged it, praying it would be strong enough to hold his weight.

Nope. It did slow his descent, but snapped before he was completely stopped. He fell hard onto a tethered bareback thomas, the hard vertebrae in its backbone making the world's worst cushion for his coccyx. The great beast reared back in startled alarm, snapping its tether and taking off at a fast gallop. Vash hung on for dear life.

"Get back here, you son of a bitch, I'm not finished with you!" That irksome tart fired more gunshots after him, forcing Vash to lean over the side to make himself a harder target, exposing himself closer to a thomas's claws than he had ever wanted to be.

Fortunately, the thomas ran faster than she could shoot, and Vash quickly counted himself finally free of that specific danger. Now he just had to get to Meryl.

That goal was impeded yet again as the thomas encountered a car stalled in the street. The creature managed to skid to an angled stop just fine, but the same couldn't be said for Vash, who was flung free and sent flying. He belly-flopped into a water trough, which, this being a desert planet after all, was only a quarter full of water. Meryl's pack was kept dry, but most of Vash, hair included, was not.

Half of his styled-up hair now hanging down limply, Vash spit water as he gingerly pushed himself out of the trough, much to the laughing delight of citizens. There were some bruises, it felt like, but nothing serious, and hands clapped him on the back once everyone was certain he was fine; as long as no one needs medical attention, it's always hilarious.

Forcing how ridiculous he must look out of his head, Vash picked up the pursuit.

Thank God, there was the white cape! He hurried and caught up, mentally rehearsing what he'd say while he ran. Tapped her on the shoulder –

– only to discover she was a he.

"May I help you?" inquired the bespectacled small man in the pristine white business suit with matching cape.

 _Sorry, I thought you were a woman I might have a thing for_ , seemed like something that required too much understanding of the context. Instead, Vash settled for, "Sorry, thought you were someone else."

"Quite all right, sir. Good day." The man carried on his way.

Defeated, Vash took a circuitous route back to the bar just in case that armed-and-definitely-dangerous paid lady was still looking for him.

As he walked, Vash took out a flyer from the pack and thought about the rodeo.

Thought some more about Meryl.

He took out a pen and paused against a wall long enough to write a time and day on the flyer before continuing on his way.

Just outside the bar, he heard Meryl's voice. He couldn't fight the grin; there was a certain amusement in chasing her all over only to find all he'd had to do was wait. It seemed life had a sense of humor.

"– have known he'd take forever," Meryl was saying. "Leave it to that broom-headed nimrod to not understand that when a lady leaves something behind she's asking you to catch up to her to kindly return it, not spend all day gallivanting around with it. He's probably forgotten all about it and is engaged in some kind of juvenile hijinks or other instead of bringing it back to me so I can thank him, that imbecilic oaf! I'm telling you, Milly, that man knows nothing of what it means to court –" She was cut off as Milly nudged her.

Turned to see Vash entering. "Well, there's my pack! I see you found it. It certainly took you long enough – and good God, you're a mess. What trouble have you been getting into? Good grief, I hope you haven't damaged anything. Give it!" she commanded, her imperiousness covering embarrassment at the thought that he might have overheard mention of her feminine machinations.

Vash stepped over to her, half his hair still sopping wet, the other half still stiffly upright, his red duster living up to its name as it was covered in the dust its wetness had attracted.

"This is for you." He thrust the pack into her arms. Before she could protest at the brusqueness of it, he laid the rodeo flyer on which he had written his note on top of her pack. "So is this."

Meryl looked at it curiously. It read simply "6:00 PM SATURDAY."

She looked up to inquire what it meant – just in time to be on the receiving end of his kiss. Dropped the pack in surprise, flyer fluttering to the floor, before relaxing into the kiss, her eyes closing as she discovered she enjoyed the experience.

After he pulled away, Vash tilted her chin up. Her eyes opened, looking directly into his.

"Get ready, Meryl Stryfe. Because I'm coming for you."

Vash turned and departed, leaving Meryl wearing a dazed grin.

Having witnessed all this, Wolfwood clinked glasses with Milly. "Yep, the game's back on."


End file.
